


I'm crawling in my skin

by finnjonesbaratheon



Category: All American (TV)
Genre: (kinda), M/M, One Shot, One-Sided Attraction, lol this is just shamelessly making Jordan sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 18:59:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16352354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finnjonesbaratheon/pseuds/finnjonesbaratheon





	I'm crawling in my skin

It’d been a week since Jordan and Asher had had their talk in Asher’s car, and Jordan would’ve liked to believe that he was doing a lot better at handling the ripping of his heart and the dull ache that throbbed in his chest every time he was around Asher. He’d like to believe that, but he’d be lying to himself. Though, not for lack of trying. The way life managed to work out was that Jordan had not actually been able to get a substantial amount of space away from Asher in order to do whatever soul searching he needed to accomplish in order to rid himself of these feelings for Asher. And he’d accepted that they were feelings, too. As soon as he’d stepped outside of the constricting confines of Asher’s car and felt the fresh air in his lungs, he’d quickly become cognizant of the fact that ‘ _just friends_ ’ don’t feel a soul-ripping tightness in their lungs.

It’d been a week since Jordan and Asher had had their talk in Asher’s car, and Asher was currently sat on Jordan’s bed, playing a video game on Jordan’s tv. Jordan had left the room about twenty minutes earlier in order to do one thing or another (Asher had totally forgotten the second his best friend stepped away and Jordan had made up some bullshit excuse before he left) and only now was Asher remembering that he hadn’t seen his friend for almost half an hour.

He paused the video game, then padded his way down the stairs with his sock covered feet. Jordan’s parents didn’t care if anyone wore shoes in the house, but Jordan had complained to Asher about how their housekeeper had complained to _him_ that everyone was tracking dirt into the house with their shoes and she was unquestionably sick of it.

“J?” Asher’s voice sliced through the enveloping quiet of downstairs. Jordan had been standing in the kitchen, his back turned to the stairway where Asher was coming from. Upon hearing his name, he swiftly turned around and gave Asher a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “What’ve you been doing this whole time, man? You’ve been gone for, like, a really long time.” Asher’s tone was soft. Worry coated every syllable. He wasn’t helping Jordan’s current internal battle.

“Sorry, dude. I came down here to get something to drink and I guess I got distracted.” A half lie, really. Jordan _had_ come downstairs for a drink, but he’d deliberately stayed down there because anywhere else was better than being in the same room with Asher.

“Well, come back upstairs. I thought we were supposed to do two player. I have the game paused,” Asher urged, then jokingly tacked on, “I need to feel better about myself right now by kicking your ass.”

“I, umm…” Jordan hesitated. In the span of five seconds, a lump managed to grow in his throat. All of the water that he’d drunk before Asher showed up downstairs seemingly evaporated and he was rendered parched once again. He grabbed his water bottle and swallowed it all to give himself more time to think. He didn’t even really know what he was trying to say. For the past week—actually, extending farther than that; perhaps since the night he and Asher had had their drunken hookup—Jordan had been fighting with himself about whether or not he wanted to get this _thing_ off his chest and finally be able to sleep at night without feeling like there was an elephant consistently sitting on him any time he tried to relax.

He hadn’t the faintest idea how Asher would even respond to such a revelation—and, truth be told, he wasn’t sure he even wanted to give his thoughts words.

It’d be like unlocking a psychological Pandora’s box. But, in Pandora’s tale, the one thing which remained in her box was hope, and Jordan’s internal hope (stupid and misguided as most would regard it) was the one thing keeping his feet still planted in front of Asher.

Asher waited, confusion written all over his face. Jordan was still drinking water. How much damn water could one person drink?

Slowly, Jordan brought the plastic water bottle down from his lips and nodded his head as though he’d just explained everything. “Yeah…” The word was slow, teetering on forced casual.

Asher looked around as if he’d just missed something. What the hell was even going on? “You didn’t tell me anything,” the boy informed his taller friend. “What’s up with you?”

Jordan sighed. The jig was up. He couldn’t stall any longer.

“I… I’m just really…” He allowed his words to trail off. He was racking his brain trying to come up with the best possible way to finish his sentences, but he was failing miserably. English was failing him in the present moment. “Do you remember the night we hooked up?” The question had been purely rhetorical. Of course Asher remembered, but Jordan needed something to jump off of in order to get to the point he was trying to arrive at.

Asher nodded, still confused. That Night™ (as they had both come to call it) wasn’t really something they brought up very often, or very casually.

“What did—I mean… did you feel anything d-during? Or a-after?” He’d swiftly managed to turn into a stuttering mess. He could feel his hands begin to shake. He gripped his plastic water bottle tighter. “I-I mean f-feelings w-wise.”

His best friend didn’t respond immediately. Asher simply scratched at his chin and chuckled, as if Jordan was working up to the punchline of some earth shatteringly hilarious joke. “J, are you serious right now?”

“Please just answer the question, Asher.” Somehow, Jordan had managed to make it through that sentence without stuttering. He hoped it’d last.

Asher sighed, but shook his head regardless. “No, I didn’t. Not during or after. But, dude, neither did you. It was just a drunk mistake, like you said.” Every unrealized fear came flooding to Jordan’s mind the moment he head the word ‘mistake’. He’d felt more disconnected from his best friend than ever. “Why are you even bringing it up?” Asher continued. He leaned against the Bakers’ kitchen counter and stared at Jordan.

“Because…”

_Because I think I might be in love with you._

_Because the thought of you not feeling the same way makes me feel like a fucking idiot._

“B-because I think that I did. Feel something, that is. After. Maybe even during, too.” His words were staccato: detached sentence fragments punctuated by the nerves that settled in them with each syllable that landed in the space between them. Whatever confusion Asher thought he might have felt before was nothing compared to the confusion that filled him now.

“Wha—what? Dude, no. You’re kidding. This is a really shitty joke, J. It’s not funny.”

“I’m not kidding and it’s not a joke,” Jordan confirmed. The words were already out there now. He might as well say the rest with whatever dignity he had left. “Since that night, my brain’s been really messed up. I just—I can’t stop thinking about it. Thinking about you. I feel so weird saying that, but it’s true.”

“Jordan, shut the fuck up.” Where Asher’s confusion once resided, anger now settled. He didn’t want to listen to this. He _couldn’t_ listen to this. “You know just as well as I do that that’s not how things work for us. You don’t get to lay this shit on me. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I don’t fucking know, Ash! And that’s what scares me! I like girls, I know I do.”

“Then why the fuck are you standing here telling me that you can’t stop thinking about me?!” Asher’s hands slammed down on the kitchen counter to emphasize his point. Jordan knew that Asher couldn’t deal with anything like this. Not now, not ever. Not with the type of father Asher had.

“I don’t fucking know, Ash! I don’t _know_. That’s the whole fucking point! This whole thing has fucked up my thought process. I don’t know anything anymore.”

“You’re damn right you don’t,” Asher hissed. “Figure your shit out, man. But don’t put it on me. You know that I have enough shit going on as is.” The shorter of the two boys spun back around and headed in the direction of the stairs. He needed to leave as fast as you could. “Just… don’t talk to me, okay? At least for the time-being. I can’t be around you when you’re saying shit like this. It’ll be good for you, too. It’ll help you get over whatever the fuck came over you.”

Without even giving Jordan the ability to get a word in (though, it wasn’t as though Jordan would’ve actually said anything had he been given the opportunity to) Asher quickly went up the stairs to grab his things and leave.

Jordan, for the most part, was able to keep the cracks in his foundation from spilling over until Asher left and the door to his house slammed shut, confirming that he was all alone. His plastic water bottle bounced off the wall with the force of its owner’s throw, only to land on the other side of the room. His legs gave out and he found himself sat on the floor of his kitchen, not even bothering to fight back the tears that were already landing on his cheeks. In his desire to get a weight off his chest, he’d only made things worse.


End file.
